§ Statement of Purpose

The View from 1776 presents a framework to understand present-day issues from the viewpoint of the colonists who fought for American independence in 1776 and wrote the Constitution in 1787. Knowing and preserving those understandings, what might be called the unwritten constitution of our nation, is vital to preserving constitutional government. Without them, the bare words of the Constitution are just a Rorschach ink-blot that politicians, educators, and judges can interpret to mean anything they wish.

"We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion. Our constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams, to the Officers of the First Brigade, Third Division, Massachusetts Militia, October 11, 1798.

§ Syndicate

The View From 1776

The Next Great Depression

If Senator Obama is elected and if he follows his announced liberal-progressive-socialist policies of high taxes, massive increases in regulation, vilification of business, and large new welfare program spending, the United States will enter a period of stagflation or a prolonged, FDR-style Depression.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/21 at 12:39 AM

So, the last eight years have led to the current melt down on Wall Street. Does this suggest we should have a lot of confidence in the folks who led us to the brink?

The conservatives will let our tax dollars bail out AIG, but if I need help to keep from foreclosure on my house, that would be a "liberal-progressive-socialist" bailout. Seems clear enough to me.

By the way, I thought we generally tagged Hoover (the Repub) with running the Depression, not FDR!

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/21 at 12:52 AM

Indeed. FDR's policies were Hoover's on steroids. We used to tag statists as social/fascists. Now we call them 'liberal/progressive'.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/21 at 11:26 AM

Mr. Henrie:

It's not surprising that you would have the impression that, "By the way, I thought we generally tagged Hoover (the Repub) with running the Depression, not FDR!"

First, I agree with you that Herbert Hoover bears a big responsibility for the severity of the Depression. Not however, because he was a laissez-faire market advocate, as liberals usually depict him. He was a mining engineer by training and believed firmly in the socialistic idea that entire economies could be managed via social and fiscal engineering.

His first act after the 1929 stock market crash was to call to Washington the heads of the nation's largest corporations and to tell them that they must not discharge workers or cut wages. If they failed to heed that demand, the government would punish them with higher taxes and stiffer regulations.

Hoover started the big public works programs

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/22 at 12:39 AM

Like the current financial melt down, it is unrealistic to attempt to lay the blame for the depression at the feet of one single person or even one party. These problems build up over long periods and result from an accumulation of legislation, tradition, popular notions, and financial theory current at time.

Every generation thinks it "knows better" than the poor schmucks of the previous era.

The current problem is the denouement of 20 years of "liberal" financial theory, followed by 20 years of "conservative" let-the-market-control-everything thinking. The coming bail-out, presented to us by King Henry of the Republican party, will no doubt be somewhere in between.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/23 at 01:02 PM